Julie Walters biography

Mamma Mia!

Born in Birmingham, England, Walters was an obedient daughter who trained to be a nurse at Queen Elizabeth Hospital to please her mother. Her desire to become an actress, however, overtook her and she left home to study drama at Manchester Poly.

In 1974 she joined the Liverpool Everyman Theatre where she worked with writer Alan Bleasdale. After being cast alongside Richard Beckinsale in the popular production of Funny Peculiar, her career took flight.

Over the next few years Walters appeared as an actress, singer, dancer or combination thereof in a variety of British stage presentations. She landed major roles in the plays Personal Services, and Stepping Out, both of which won her BAFTA nominations. Walters also received a Lawrence Olivier award nomination for her role in Fool For Love.

She won a Tony award for her performance of a "modern Eliza Doolittle" character in the London and Broadway productions of Educating Rita and she was nominated for an Oscar after co-starring in the 1983 film version. Educating Rita also garnered her a BAFTA, Golden Globe and a Variety Club award. Walter's next triumph was the film version of the play Personal Services (1987), in which she played a character based on a real-life madame.

It was on the small screen that she gained recognition across England for her work as a comic actress. Walters received BAFTA nominations for her work in Boys from the Black Stuff and Say Something Funny, as well as roles in the popular television series, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mol and the TV movie, Pat and Margaret.

The actress remained on the small screen for most most of the '90s, but made the occasional feature, including Stepping Out (1991) and Intimate Relations (1996) In 2000, her movie career heated up again with Billy Elliot (2000), for which she received a second Oscar nomination and won her second BAFTA Film award. She played Molly Weasley, Ron's mother, in all the Harry Potter films, and starred in Calendar Girls (2003), about a group of middle-aged women who posed nude for charity. In 2006 she won a Silver St. George award at the Moscow International Film Festival for Driving Lessons, in which she co-starred with Rupert Grint, who plays her son in the Harry Potter films. Walters can be seen, or rather heard, in the animated film Brave (2012), in which she voices The Witch. More recently, she starred in Brooklyn (2015) and Paddington 2 (2018), and reprised her role as Rosie in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018).

In December 1999, she received an OBE (Order of the British Empire) for her service to drama. She has been married to Grant Roffey since 1997 and they have one daughter, Maisie.